Authors: Kipjo Ewers
Brick Bear unbuckled his pants dropping them along with his trunks to let them know he was dead serious.
“Nigga, if you let that crackhoe suck you off,” yelled a female with thick long braids from amongst the flock, “you ain’t sticking that shit up in me tonight!”
“Bitch shut your ass before I drag you over here and make you join her!” He furiously pointed the scepter at her.
The same female glared at him folding her arms, as he turned his attention back to Rosemary.
“What you waiting for bitch? Time is money. Oh, and if college boy averts his eyes the deal is off.”
Rosemary with eyes soaked with tears quickly gave Laurence a pleading look as she dropped to her knees.
“Fuck you Patrick.”
A confused Brick Bear stood there stuck attempting to process what he just heard.
“Say what?”
Laurence finally raised his head glaring at him with widened eyes of wrath.
“I said …fuck …you!”
Laurence exploded from where he stood shocking everyone within the room as adrenaline fueled rage blocked out the mind numbing pain ravaging his knee allowing him to tackle a startled Brick Bear knocking them both over his leather love seat, which also sent a still seated Trevor flying as well.
“Laurence no! No!” Rosemary screamed scrambling to her feet.
Laurence blocked her out as he sprung on top of a stunned Brick Bear and proceeded to roar as he hammered him with vicious straight rights. He broke three of his knuckles with the first three punches, but he continued to wail on him. He continued to rifle him with punches to the face as blood splattered, and he waited to be pulled off him and beaten to death or feel a bullet to the skull. He howled as he waited for the end.
That is what he saw inside of his mind.
What he truly saw … what he did … was entirely different.
After she collected the fifty-dollar bill, neither said a word nor looked at one another as they left Brick Bear’s apartment and headed home.
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That night he laid there lifeless, like a broken doll, as Rosemary cooked up the poison. He didn’t help her as she searched for a working vein to inject him. His eyes fluttered with running tears as the venom entered his system starting the chase of the taunting beast. The only solace was that the crippling pain within his knee was gone, even for a little while. His tears would continue to run as Rosemary prepared her own fix. He watched emotionless from the poison as she smoked herself to oblivion.
After she devoured her rock, she crawled over to him with whatever sense she had left, removing her bottom and panties while unbuckling and pulling down his pants. She managed to arouse his body and climb on top of him to go for another type of ride. During the entire ordeal, Laurence’s tears continued to pour.
Like a broken doll he slowly turned his head to the urine stained half burnt wall, and began to pray.
He prayed to catch the beast that night so that it could take him far away, to the land where he would not be missed.
He begged it on that night to take him away from his hollow, shattered, useless shell … and never bring him back.
CHAPTER 3
The next day, Laurence awoke not only to disappointment that the beast had left him once again in his rotten existence, but to the high pitched screams and cries of Rosemary.
“Oh my god!! Oh my fucking god! Laurence wake up! Wake the fuck up!”
Still in the afterglow of his chase, his world was hazy. His dulled senses made him slow to react to the drama happening in the room.
His eyes could barely focus enough to make out what had her in a state of hysteria. Across the room leaned up against the wall right in front of him, it stared back.
“What … what the …” he fought to sit up.
“What did you do?” She turned to him. “What did you do?”
Tears ran from her eyes, mixing with the dirt of her unwashed face, as she clutched her skull through her dried up nappy hair.
“How …how … did that get …here?” he mumbled.
“You stole it! You went back and stole it from Brick Bear! He’s going to kill us! He’s going to …”
“Stop yelling dammit!” He clutched his head trying to think as he sat up. “I’m ain’t stole shit. I’ve been here with you all night fucked up.”
“Then how did it get here?” She frantically pointed. “How?”
“I don’t know!” He howled.
She collapsed to her knees whimpering, and for a brief second a part of him found her disgusting. Memories of pulling her back from the brink due to overdoses, and here she was freaking out over getting murdered by a drug dealer. He didn’t give a damn how he went out. Heroin or bullet, it was all the same to him.
Still, two things brought him concern. The first concern was how in the world the scepter had ended up in their apartment when they had handed it over to Brick Bear. The second concern was if Brick Bear was coming to kill them, he wasn’t going to give them the quick and painless death that catching the dragon would.
These two concerns brought him to his feet, pushing through the pain that returned to his knee once again. He hobbled over to the scepter, took it up and gave it a more detailed look over. Free of desperation, withdrawal, and with a somewhat clearer head he believed he saw and felt what Pops had encountered when he examined it last night. Sections of the scepter made from the reddish crystal material had what seemed to be an unnatural light inside that flickered like a heartbeat. A part of him almost felt as if he could sense whatever was inside of it.
“Pops was right! That thing is cursed, and now we’re dead! We’re so fucking dead!”
Her blubbering broke him out of his trance.
“We’re not dead,” he muttered going for his pants.
“What are you going to do?” She sheepishly asked.
“What do you think I’m going to do?” He cut her a foul look. “Going back to Brick Bear with this thing, explain to him that we didn’t take it, and give it back.”
“Are you crazy? He’ll kill you!”
“He’s not going to kill me if I get to him first!” He snapped back at her. “I’m one of his favorite customers remember? Worst case I get stomped out nice and good. So stay here and I’ll sort this out.”
He grabbed his coat lying on the ground and threw it on. While doing so he waited for her to say to him, “No, baby please don’t go.” A sneer grew on his face as she just sat there not uttering a word. It was obvious her reasoning for not saying anything was it was better him than her. His repulsion for her began to rise to a fever pitch. A part of him would have welcomed Brick Bear putting him out of his misery if it meant not coming back and seeing her again.
He stormed out, slamming the door behind him; it was amazing that it didn’t fall off its hinges. His memories of how they came together were still foggy. All he remembered was a party where he had continued his transition to harder narcotics. That night he woke up from the first of many benders with her on top of him, still inside of her. She awoke to his morning wood and failed attempt to nudge her off of him. They stared at each other silently for a good five minutes without saying a word, finished what they were too messed up to start the night before, went to breakfast, and had been together ever since.
But instead of elevating each other, they were birds with broken wings entangled in a free fall with jagged rocks at the bottom. What he knew of her past was what she spoke in her sleep as she would go into fits with pleas of “No!”, “Stop!” and “Uncle Teddy!” Her psychological and mental pain was worse than his. The rocks helped to erase that pain, but like the dragon chase it was just a temporary fix. She was no good for him, and he was no good for her. They both needed better to be better, but they were both far too weak to part ways.
He was pulled back from sad memories by the sound of boot steps against the dirty tile floor.
“Oh shit.”
He only got within five feet of the hallway. Standing in his way was the person he was heading to see with his entourage.
“Holy shit!” Brick Bear laughed. “That’s my property isn’t it? Looks like I owe you both an apology boys; I fucked up on this one.”
“Hey Brick,” Laurence fretfully smiled. “I was just coming to see you.”
“Really son?” Brick Bear grinned. “That’s funny, and good to know. But since we’re here already, why don’t we go inside and have a discussion.”
Laurence quickly looked at Trevor and Chucky daring him to make a move. With the narrow hallway and his bum knee there was no way he would be able to make a break for it. Not to mention how messed up it would be if he were to ditch Rosemary to fend for herself.
“Why don’t we just go outside and talk?” Laurence motioned.
“Why?” He shrugged. “You came to my abode last night; I’m not good enough to come inside your crib?”
A powerless Laurence, realizing that any further stalling would instantly lead to brutal violence, about-faced back to the apartment. The long walk to Brick Bear’s crib had been intended to mentally prepare him for a potential beat-down. With that prep-time thrown out the window, fear took over.
Fumbling around with the lock bought him no time to think; walking through the door and seeing Rosemary’s petrified expression as he came back in followed by Brick Bear and his crew bought him zero time to think. As she stood there whimpering, Brick Bear and his men purposely stood in the center of the room acting as a border between the two of them. It was another sign that things were about to get very ugly. It was just a matter of when.
Brick Bear with hands clasped gave the place a nonchalant look over. Laurence’s mind wondered to whether he was thinking what a Grade A dump it was, or considering how solid the walls were and if anyone would be able to hear their screams. His eyes finally fixed on Laurence, who extended the scepter to hand it back to him.
“Nah son, you hold that for me for a minute,” Brick Bear motioned. “I’ll let you know when you can give it back to me.”
“Brick … look,” Rosemary searched to find words to create a sentence in her terrified state.
Brick Bear calmly turned to her, putting a finger to his lips as a signal for her to remain silent, which she obediently did.
“So I wake up this morning, looking for my bitch stick,” Brick Bear sarcastically beamed, focusing back to Laurence. “And lo and behold, the shit was not where I left it. I searched all over for it, accused my boys and then one of my bitches of taking it, and then misplacing it. Out of nowhere, I got this weird feeling. At first I couldn’t believe it, thought it was crazy, but that weird feeling ended up leading me here, and what do I see as I walk up to your front door? So …how did you pull it off?”
“Brick, listen …” a sweating Laurence swallowed, attempting to find the right words to defuse the landmine he was standing on. “We didn’t break into your crib and steal this thing back man. You got to believe us. We woke up this morning and it was just here!”
“It’s mid-afternoon college boy,” Brick Bear acted startled. “You all can’t tell time?”
“He’s telling the truth; it was just here when we woke up!” Rosemary squealed. “We’ve been here all night fucked up man! You got to believe us!”
“Come on Limp Bitch!” Brick Bear laughed, ignoring Rosemary while waving Laurence off. “I almost had a sliver of respect for you. I mean to sneak into my crib undetected and take the very thing you used to pay for the product that I generously gave you last night. I mean that takes some serious balls, baby balls in your case, but balls nonetheless. Now you’re telling me what? It just magically got up and walked out of my crib which is a million times better than this rathole? Please do not insult me, or embarrass yourself, you went to college remember? Now, what are we gonna do about this?”
“Look Brick, it’s right here,” Laurence swallowed. “You could just take it and go man.”
“I could,” he sardonically nodded. “Thing is like I said, my boys here knew I was looking for it, my bitches knew I was looking for it. And now I look stupid because I falsely accused them. Word gets out on the street that I allowed a fucking nobody junkie like you to rob me, and I did nothing. Could hurt my rep, you know what I mean? So I ask again, what are we gonna do about this?”
“Brick …look,” Laurence lowered his head. “Take it out on me man. Rosemary had nothing to do with this. This is all me. Just take me outside and …”
“Nah man,” he waved him off again. “There’s no need for that, I just thought up a great solution that will fix all of this.”
Without hesitation, Trevor pulled out his Beretta 92 with a silencer attached to it, aimed and shot Rosemary at close range in her abdomen. Her eyes flooded with tears as she fell to her knees. They met the eyes of a horrified Laurence as she clutched her belly seeping blood like hot molasses. She attempted to scream, but her throat filled with blood.
“No!”
Laurence cried as he lunged to get to her, only to be stopped by Brick Bear and something painful. It was sharp, cold, and in his gut. It felt as if it went all the way to his back. He groaned as his own throat and mouth filled with blood.
Through the pain, he stayed with Rosemary, until Trevor fired another round into the side of her head. It was a violent end, nothing like the movies, as the bullet not only blew a huge hole out the side of her skull; the force of the impact caused her head to smack brutally against the filthy floor. What was more painful to see, was that the horror in her face never left as the life dispersed from her body. It would be forever imprinted on her visage as to how she lived, suffered, and died.